Black & White Butterick 6655

 

My latest dress fits into my black & white neutrals palette of my fall wardrobe planning colour picks. And I'm glad that my latest round of planning hasn't changed much because I cut this dress out a year ago! And it only took me two evenings to sew it up. 

This is Butterick 6655, which I've made before, but this time I changed it up a bit. I cut the front on the fold rather than including the front seam, because I wasn't going to add in the faux button panel here. I just liked the way this pattern fit and wanted a basic sheath dress to wear. I also added in side seam pockets as I knew from my first one (where I didn't add pockets) that they would work with the fit this time.

My first one was made of a linen blend, but this time I was using a stretch bengaline, which is less familiar to me. The thing to note about this fabric is that the stretch goes lengthwise along the fabric, so you need to cut out on the crossgrain. But there is quite a bit of stretch so I thought it would be suited to a closer fitting dress, for a bit more comfort in wear. 

I used some white broadcloth for the pocket bags, as I thought self fabric would be too bulky. I was worried that there might be some show-through, but when I tested it I realized that the gabardine is quite thick and not transparent at all, even being white. So I didn't line the dress, I'll just use a slip when necessary. 

I didn't want it to be any shorter for this view, and probably should have cut it a bit longer - thanks, year ago me. So instead of turning up a hem, I used some white bias binding and made a 1/4" hem. I decided to hand stitch the hem since this fabric does ripple a bit when hemming - the sleeve required some steam to get the wobbly out. Hand stitching the bias facing down was easy and didn't take long, and it has a much cleaner visual finish. I'm pleased with this neutral - it will go nicely with a couple of bright blazers I picked up at the thrift store recently. And with lots of me-mades in my wardrobe too!